Tom wrote:

"This is kind of interesting. I get the impression that even if we had located tons of nerve gas and a load of nuclear warheads under construction, that it would still make no difference to you "

But we didn't.

Hey, I know! Lets go invade Mexicor the fact we'll poke around until we find something to retroactively justify the war!

Great idea Tom! Should I file this general mode of behavior under idiocy or moral decrepitude?

tom wrote:
"short of omniscience, or an actual nuclear attack on a city, there would be no way of absolutely proving he would ever have given these weapons to terrorists to use on us in the future."

So we had our head so up our asses on this issue that we actually believed in piles of WMD, fully or partially completed Nuclear reactors and etc that DID NOT EXIST. Now you claim that surely, short of omniscience we could not have known if they were there or not.

No, not short of Omnisicience, tom- just reasonable due dilligence.

The bar you have set is for anyone to stipulate ANYTHING about ANY other country and have be a moral justification for war. Because, ya'know, short of bing omniscient and all, there is no way of knowing if it is true or false.

That sounds like a Moral and Practical disaster. Sell this bullshit to someone else, like other folks who believe in Yetis and UFOs- cause I aint buyin.

Tom wrote:
"Just like there is no absolute proof that Saddam and Sons would have killed additional Iraqis in the next thirty years. Heck, there's no absolute proof that if Hitler had conquered Russia and England, that he wouldn't have left the Jews there completely alone. I guess we'll never know.

Apples and oranges Tom. A red herring to boot.

Tom wrote:
"If you really think this way, I hope you're not in charge of anything really important."

I am in charge of a lot of things that are really important- caring for my family, making correct moral choices on a daily basis. Standing up for whats right and doing my best to counter whats wrong.

I think I do an excellent job. Spanky ;-)

I love it how, when you are at the ass-end of your argument, after wallowing in fiction, analogy, postulation and etc- you draw the ad hominem out. Its sure sign you ain't got nothing left and are about to start ignoring any more posts in this thread ;-)

Tom wrote:
"It's kind of funny. Before the Iraq war the Left was harping on Bush's failure to interpret the scattered clues and intelligence data to predict that the terrorists were going to fly airplanes into buildings"

And in general, the Left was right- no pun intended. It was a massive failure.

Tom wrote:
"Nothing that was available as intelligence before 9/11 was absolute proof that someone was going to fly commericial airplanes into buildings."

This is debatable in the least. But I like to play, so lets stipulate it as true and then you wrote:

"Had the FBI arrested these people for the crime of taking flight lessons, then what? Unless they had their plans written out in detail, what would be the evidence?"

Yes, and notice that your drawing analogy again? Like I said, I like to play, so lets go into it.

Notice the FBI COULD have simply investigated the matter- which they didn't

Notice the FBI COULD have tailed, observed, tapped or otherwise kept an eye on the situation- which they didn't

Notice the FBI COULD have called these people in for questioning within the bounds of their power and legally and with cause- which they didn't

The FBI had ANY NUMBER of reasonable things they COULD have done given PARTIAL information.

Arresting, shooting, torturing etc the suspects wasn't necessary- at least not at first.

So does your analogy make any sense now? Or are we going to push this around and see if we can't clothe the naked truth with it.

Nice flyin' Wedge- howabout coming down to earth.

Davin L.